waiting

• IPA^(key): /ˈweɪtɪŋ/
  • (US, Canada) IPA^(key): [ˈweɪ̯ɾɪŋ]

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• Rhymes: -eɪtɪŋ

waiting

1. present participle of wait
   • 1874, John Fiske, Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, I. 122.

     In all ages, men have fought over words, without waiting to know what the words really signified.

   • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 19, in The Mirror and the Lamp:

     At the far end of the houses the head gardener stood waiting for his mistress, and he gave her strips of bass to tie up her nosegay. This she did slowly and laboriously, with knuckly old fingers that shook.

   Your guest has been waiting for you. (progressive)   Waiting for something to happen is part of the job. (gerund)   They hurried into the waiting car. (participle used as adjective)

• waiting game
• waiting room

waiting (countable and uncountable, plural waitings)

1. (obsolete) Watching.
2. The act of staying or remaining in expectation.
   • 1876, Richard Watson Gilder, The New Day, A Poem in Songs and Sonnets

     There was an awful waiting in the earth, / As if a mystery greatened to its birth.

3. Attendance, service.
   • 1871–72, George Eliot, Middlemarch, Chapter 36

     Green glasses for hock, and excellent waiting at table.

• in waiting

• waiting in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.